Scar Night (31 page)

Clay was thinking about it.

After a moment Fogwill laughed. “No, Captain Clay, I can’t think of anything either.”

An hour passed before Mark Hael appeared. He had with him a chemist who wore a grease-stained apron and a breathing mask still slung around his neck. The man’s arms and head were bare, his skin scrubbed raw. Even his lips looked peeled. He sniffed the air and surveyed the room gleefully.

Fogwill couldn’t help but notice the soot stains on the commander’s uniform and the smudges left by both men’s boots on his Loombenno carpet.

“This is Coleblue,” Hael said. “He set up the gas tanks in the Sanctum.”

Coleblue tramped more soot into the carpet and rubbed his red hands together briskly. “I can’t guarantee it will work. We’ve tested it on birds, yes, pigeons—sparrows, doves—same respiratory system, we think, faster than ours, more sensitive, but you never know.”

“What did it do to these birds?” Fogwill asked.

“Killed them fast.” Coleblue snapped his fingers. “Like miners’ finches, quick quick.”

Fogwill eyed the chemist’s boiled skin. A sharply unpleasant odour hung about the man that reminded him of gasoliers. “What would happen if
I
breathed it?”

Coleblue’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t want to do that, no, no, not too many breaths anyway. Carnival will be more sensitive to the poison, yes. As you surmised, she ought to be incapacitated more quickly than you. But it’s best you hold your breath and leave the room as soon as it has been released.”

Clay grunted. “The gas in that airship didn’t bother her much.”

“Liftgas doesn’t burn lungs like this. You can’t breathe liftgas, no, but then she knew it was there, knew not to inhale.” Coleblue looked from Clay to Fogwill. “She won’t even smell this until she drops.” He smacked his hands together.

“I hope I won’t have to use it at all,” Fogwill said. “It’s merely a precaution.”

“Don’t like the sound of it,” Clay said. “Risky.”

Fogwill’s brows arched. “You don’t much trust gas, Captain, do you?”

“Never trust anything you can’t see.”

“What about air?”

“Especially air.”

With a slight shake of his head the priest turned back to the chemist. “Where did you hide the valve?”

“Under the lectern,” Coleblue said. “Twist it anti-clockwise to release the gas. The Sanctum will be flooded in seconds. We can go there now and I’ll show you.”

“Fine.” Fogwill rose. “I’ll be back shortly, Clay. Will you keep an eye out for Dill?” He followed Hael and Coleblue to the door, then stopped. “Mr. Coleblue, what would happen if Dill breathed the gas?”

“Nasty.” Coleblue snapped his fingers again. “Quick quick.”

S
he means to kill me.

Dill couldn’t have reached for his sword even if he’d had it with him. His limbs were frozen, his blood dead in his veins. His thin armour felt like loops of heavy chain draped around his shoulders, the empty scabbard like an airship anchor.

Carnival stood with her wings half outstretched, hunched slightly as though ready for flight.

Or ready to pounce?

The feathers were hues of dark grey, flecked here and there with brown and black. She was lean, with muscles tight as wire coiled around slender bones, and as gaunt as a Spine assassin. Her mouldy leather trousers and vest might have been a thousand years old. Tangled black hair hung like a torn net over her face, partly obscuring her scars.
So many scars
.

Old scars cut through ancient scars. Thin white lines crisscrossed her cheeks, her forehead, her chin, her bare arms, leaving no part of her skin unmarked. Knife scars, all of them but one: a gouge like a rope mark looped her neck. She fingered it idly as she studied him, her head tilted to one side, as if she’d never seen his like before. And yet beneath the scars she might have been pretty. She looked no more than a year older than him. Without her scars she might have passed for a temple angel—had it not been for those eyes.

Carnival’s eyes were as black as the abyss, darker than the rage of a hundred archons; cold and empty as death. Fires from the Poison Kitchens burned deep in them and seemed the only glimmer of life there.

“I hate it here,” she said.

“It’s cold…,” Dill said. “But warmer…by the fires.”

They stared at each other for a long time. Booms and random clanks from the factories drifted with the ash across the Scythe and filled the night.

She was eyeing his empty scabbard. Dill noticed a small iron fork tucked into her own belt. A gardener’s tool?

Carnival sniffed. “This air is foul.”

He nodded.

“Poisonous.”

He nodded.

“You like to inhale poison?”

He shook his head.

“Come with me.”

It wasn’t a request. She turned and walked away, and Dill followed.

She took to the air and glanced round at him once. Her teeth flashed and then she was off in a graceful, powerful arc, wings pounding, quickly gaining height. With his heart hammering, Dill pulled himself up after her.

Carnival led him north. Dill struggled to keep up, but the armour dragged him down. His wings lashed the air and his lungs burned. The scabbard kept knocking against his leg and he now wished he’d never brought it. But he’d needed something to remind him he was a temple warrior. It had mattered at the time; now it felt foolish.

The city below was a blur. Houses and chains and streets rushed by. Dill’s eyes were fixed on Carnival. Her wings cut through swathes of stars, the wind whipping her long black hair. She beat her wings once for his every two strokes, and still the gap between them widened.

“Wait!” he yelled, but the wind stole his cry. Gritting his teeth, he forced his exhausted muscles to keep moving.

And then, abruptly, Carnival stopped. She dropped like a stone towards the rooftops. Dill began to follow, but halted when he saw where she’d landed. It was a walled garden, dark as a pool of tar. Only a small patch of its lawn shone faintly in the moonlight, crisscrossed with shadows from a naked tree planted in the centre, and from the mesh of chains stretched between the neighbouring townhouses. Sheer darkness crouched around the lawn itself. Dill circled above, a tight pain cramping his chest. All of the blood seemed to have drained from his wings.

“What?” Carnival shouted.

To catch his breath, Dill landed on a thin chain above the garden. Iron creaked; the chain shifted. He lost his balance, toppled, and suddenly he was lying on his back on the lawn, gasping and looking straight up at the stars.

Carnival grunted. “Deftly managed.”

Dill rose shakily. The garden didn’t seem as dark as it had looked from above. Sprays of flowers and ivy-strewn walls bordered the lawn, while a wrought-iron gate led to a cobbled lane beyond. All around him the air was fragrant with night roses. He flexed his wings tentatively: nothing appeared to be broken.

Carnival seemed as relaxed as earlier. “I dream of you,” she said.

Dill blinked.

“I dream of all the angels.” Again she regarded him in that curious way. “Why do you think that is?”

“I don’t know.”

“I never know the names, but I know all the faces. Old and young. Sometimes I dream of them among corpses and sometimes I dream of them dying. Then they leave me for ever, and I dream of their sons.” She paused. “Do you dream of me?”

A memory stirred—creaking chains, scars, fresh blood. “Sometimes,” he said.

“What is your name?”

“Dill.”

“You know my name.”

Dill merely swallowed.

“The temple sent you.”

He managed a nod.

“Why?”

Adjunct Crumb had told him what to say. He’d talked eloquently about peace and understanding, about hatred and fear and forgiveness. Dill had spent hours learning the speech, but under her gaze the words failed him. “I…They…” he began.

Carnival didn’t seem to hear him. She stared through him with those night eyes of hers. “I like this garden,” she said. “An old servant used to tend these plants for rich owners who never come here.” She grabbed a sprig of jasmine and rolled the white flowers in one scarred palm. “I think he once sensed me watching him from high in the tree. I heard his blood quicken, saw his muscles tense. Do you know what he did?”

Dill shook his head.

“He carried on tending his flowers, pulling weeds from the earth, pruning back the roses and ivy, never looking up at the tree, all the time his heart beating like a drumroll. When he finished he trimmed the grass with his shears, then gathered it all in his barrow and took it away, like he always did.

“I’ve been here every morning since. He never came back.”

“They want to parley,” Dill managed at last.

She laughed: a high, savage laugh that lifted the hairs on the back of his neck. He took a step back.

Carnival stepped closer. “What do they think I need from them? Peace? Absolution? Will they promise to rein in the Spine?”

Dill backed further away.

Carnival advanced. “A place in the abyss for my soul and all those inside me?” Lances of moonlight cut across her eyes. The scars constricted beneath her tumbled hair. “Or blood? Am I to get first pick of the dead, before the temple dumps them?” She bared her teeth. “Or will they give me a sword, make me an
angel
like you?” She pressed a finger into his chest, leaned closer until her face was only an inch from his. “I don’t believe in angels.”

Dill felt his wings press back against the garden wall. “Angelwine,” he blurted.

Carnival stopped. Her teeth were clenched, her hair wild about her face, but the fire had left her eyes. “It’s a trap,” she said.

“No.”

“They want to kill me.”

“No,” Dill said. “I mean, yes, but…”

“They think I don’t remember,” Carnival said. “They think I’ve forgotten the planetarium so soon. They think I remember nothing!” Her expression turned to fury. “That Spine bitch, she should have burned, should have…”

Rachel? She means Rachel
. He tried desperately to pull her away from her anger. “They want you to come to the Sanctum at dawn. Adjunct Crumb will speak to you there alone. No soldiers. No Spine. He’ll make you a deal.”

She snorted. “Tell him to go to hell. Do you think I’m insane?”

Dill didn’t answer that.

“There have been other traps,” she snarled, “a long time ago. Different places. Scores of places.” Her breaths were coming faster, her eyes furiously searching the ground. “Places where the Maze came in my wake. And blood. I think…” She slammed her palms against her sides. “They know I can’t remember. They—”

“
She’ll
be there,” Dill said.

“Who?”

“The Spine,” he said, “from the planetarium. I can arrange it.”

Carnival froze. She glared at him for a long moment before her scars relaxed into a terrible grin. “You can arrange that?”

Dill felt as though he’d stepped from the city straight into the abyss. He nodded.

“Your eyes,” Carnival said.

Dill hardly heard her. All his life he’d wanted to do something right, to make the Church proud of him. He’d wanted to stand tall among the ranks of his ancestors. But now he wished he could take back everything he’d said and done. A memory came to him of Rachel leaning over the balustrade at the Scythe.

If I fell over would you catch me?

At that moment Dill realized who he was. Not a temple warrior like Callis. Not worthy enough to be called an angel. He was a coward and a betrayer, and his eyes were burning as green as his friend’s.

“You don’t fear me any more,” Carnival said.

He met her gaze sharply. “No.”

“Just wait,” she growled.

22

THINGS GO WRONG

D
EVON LEANED AGAINST
the
Birkita
’s aft-deck rail and watched the dawn. He’d allowed Angus a few hours’ sleep before they attempted to land, in the hope that he might be fresher and less likely to fumble the descent. The Heshette would be watching and it was important that the craft’s landing not appear to be uncontrolled. Sypes was still on the bridge, but now tied to his chair, snoring off the wine he’d drunk earlier. The old priest seemed unable to stay awake for any length of time, as though his mind sought to hide its secrets under a blanket of sleep. Devon himself felt no desire to rest. The angelwine was fire in his veins. It burned and itched and kept him sharp. He wondered if he’d ever need to sleep again.

But he knew it was changing him in other ways. His temper flared at nothing, and his anger, once unleashed, was difficult to rein in. After Sypes’s attempt to destroy the airship it had taken a supreme effort of will not to strangle the old priest. It seemed to Devon his consciousness was thin, but swelling like the skin of a thundercloud.

Over what? Does this anger come from my own subconscious or from the
angelwine itself?
Could the elixir harbour residues of hate? The thought was ludicrous—a soul was not aware or conscious; nothing more than energy to fuel the flesh—but he still felt uneasy.

He leaned out over the rail and let the desert wind cool his face. Deepgate lay far south across the pink dunes, hidden beneath the horizon, with only a haze of smoke to betray its position. A cloud of silver motes hung in the sky between here and there, and seemed not to move, but the warships would be burning after him with all the speed they could muster. Aether-lights flickered between them as they passed messages back and forward. To the north, Blackthrone rose sharp and serrated in the morning light.

Even from this distance the mountain looked unnatural, like something carved by ancients: the knuckles of a massive bronze fist punching through the foothills around it.

The desert here was virgin, free of the caravan tracks that scarred the lands around Deepgate. Endless ripples and curves of sand swept by, blown into drifting plumes by the wind and broken only by plains of boulders and groves of petrified trees.

Devon estimated he would reach the foothills within the hour. He’d let his captives continue to sleep until then; if for no other reason than that he might enjoy the peace of the morning undisturbed.
And then the tribes?
It would be the first test of the angelwine, of what he had become. Perhaps he should just keep going, fly over Blackthrone and on to the horizon? What new lands would he find out there? The Deadsands stretched as far as Dalamoor in the far north, a hard desert settlement in the shadow of arid, nameless mountains. Those missionaries who took that road rarely found their way home: victims of thirst or of the Heshette. Survivors brought back stories of wicked cults, bandits, parched farmlands, and hidden pools of slipsand.

Those who travelled east and followed the green banks of the Coyle, south of the river towns, fared better. Three hundred and seventy years ago, Arthur Drum had been the toast of Deepgate when his skiff returned unmolested, with news that the Coyle spilled into the Yellow Sea. Further expeditions skirted the coasts and found little but mud and stilt villages inhabited by savages. But then, ninety years ago, the great salt captain Donald Bosonson had set out straight across the water. He returned a year later with fewer than half his men alive, and with grim tidings. Lush but uninhabited islands, the Volcanic Isles, peppered the south, but if there was an end to the Yellow Sea it lay beyond the reach of the largest ships.

Winds permitting, airships could travel faster, but the weight of fuel limited their range. Only the largest could reach the Coyle delta. And for what? A thousand leagues of sucking mud and salt vipers. There were still occasional sea expeditions to the Volcanic Isles, but they brought back little to justify the expense and the Church was keen to curtail them.

His conservatory had been stocked with plants from these rotting green lands, his aquarium with specimens from the poisonous brine that had claimed so many sailors.

So it is with life: everything is poison. Everything decays, is consumed, and gives birth to yet more hunger and decay.

Once more he gazed south across the Deadsands, into the far distance where the Yellow Sea churned somewhere beyond the horizon. Nothing but sand and scrub plains and petrified trees. Civilization blossomed in only one place in this wasteland.

Civilization?
The word tasted sour in his mouth.
The hunger in that city is palpable, the need to suck the marrow from anyone who can keep their dead hearts beating for another moment. But there is another hunger evident: one that reaches up from the abyss. A hunger for souls.

He would soon give Ulcis a feast of souls.

The port companionway door creaked open and Devon turned to see Angus step out. The guard had discarded his armour, revealing the boiled leathers he wore underneath. Dark lines marred his sickly white face. “I need more serum,” he said, in obvious pain.

His intervals of need were getting more frequent. Angus would not last much longer. Devon nodded and pulled the serum bottle from his waistcoat pocket. He gripped it in the crook of his arm while he filled the syringe.

Angus was staring at the bottle. “There’s not much left,” he said.

“There’s still enough.” Devon held the syringe in his teeth while he tucked the precious poison back into his pocket.

“Enough for what? Another day?”

Twelve hours, in fact. Angus had grown resistant to the treatment more quickly than Devon had anticipated. The guard might have been useful in piloting that great land machine, the Tooth of God, back to Deepgate. Now it seemed Devon would have to rely entirely on cooperation from the tribes. An uneasy prospect. “Enough to last until we get back,” he insisted.

“And if there isn’t?”

The Poisoner smiled as he slid the needle into the guard’s arm. “I can end the pain—in other ways.”

Angus closed his eyes and shuddered as the serum took hold. Sweat broke from his forehead and he sucked in a sharp breath. Then he opened his eyes and sneered, “The Poisoner’s mercy. You chain me to your side like a dog and then offer my death as a reward.”

“You desire pain?” Devon asked.

“I want life.”

“Life is nothing but degrees of pain and hunger. Why cling to such suffering? Like everyone else, are you not simply waiting to die?”

The guard snorted. “There’s more to life than waiting for death.”

“What? To breed? Create more snapping mouths to carry your hunger for another generation?”

“You don’t like women?”

He remembered Elizabeth on her deathbed, lingering while the poisons took her further away from him. She had not been able to open her eyes or speak. Devon had gripped her hand tightly, causing them both pain. She had moaned, and he had squeezed her hand until he wept. At that moment pain was all he had left to share with her.

Angus said, “When that stuff runs out, I’m going to kill you.”

Devon studied him briefly, then turned away and stared out at the lightening sky, still thinking of Elizabeth. For the first time since he’d taken the angelwine, he missed the pain. “We’ll be landing shortly,” he said. “Then
everyone
will want to kill me.”

R
achel was still on the top balcony of the Rookery Spire when she received the summons. It was the highest point in the temple and gave her the best view of Deepgate. Just an hour ago she’d watched Dill finally leap from the rooftop and take to the air, but she’d soon lost sight of him in the vast moonlit city. Since then she had spent most of the time pacing back and forth while she shuttled a throwing knife between the fingers of one hand. In her other hand she still held Dill’s sword. She’d retrieved it from Fogwill for safekeeping.

The messenger who approached her was overweight and gasping for breath. There were more than two thousand steps to the top of the Rookery Spire. “You’re…to…” He clutched at his chest. “..come to the Sanctum.”

“Me?” She was mystified.

He nodded.

“I’m the last person they want there.”

“Adjunct Crumb…” He leaned against the balustrade. “…will explain. The angel…” He paused to suck in another gulp of air.

“What about him? What’s happened?”

“He’s…back now.”

“Already?” Rachel’s grip tightened around Dill’s sword. “Has he been harmed?”

The messenger managed to shake his head.

Without waiting to hear more, Rachel flew down the stairwell and raced through the passages of the temple. She felt like kissing Dill’s sword. Perhaps it wasn’t as useless at it appeared. Apparently the weapon’s absence from Dill’s scabbard had just saved the young angel’s life.

When she reached the Sanctum, Dill and Fogwill stood there waiting. There was no sign of Carnival, however. Fogwill was in a flurry, and Dill kept his head bowed. When the angel glanced up, she saw that his eyes were green.

What’s he done to be so ashamed of?

“He’s refusing to leave,” Fogwill said. “Refusing a direct order from his superior! He simply will not budge. Now that you’re here, perhaps you can talk some sense into him. I don’t want to have him removed by force.”

“Where’s Carnival?” Rachel asked.

“She’ll be here any moment.” Fogwill glowered at Dill, whose head dropped even lower. “Meanwhile, we have a bit of a problem.”

D
awn poured into the bowl of the city, as if chasing Carnival through the streets. She flew hungrily, almost recklessly, between the chains, skirted pendulum houses, soared over and under bridges, and tore down lanes scarcely wider than her wingspan. Dead leaves stormed behind her. A shutter opened, then slammed quickly shut again, but Carnival didn’t give it a second glance. She was thinking about the Spine bitch and what she was going to do to her.

Of course it was a trap. She didn’t care. There had been other traps before the one in the planetarium, other places where they’d managed to hurt her. Some dark part of her mind recalled this: memories she’d buried deep because to reach for them made her want to scream. It didn’t matter now. However much they wounded her, she’d injure them back a hundred times more, a thousand times. She’d bring Iril right to their doorsteps and damn them all to its corridors.

The bitch would be first.

Mist turned the Warrens into a soft puzzle of chains. Carnival plunged on through, drinking the fresh, wet air. People moved beneath her but she paid them no notice. They could wait until Scar Night. Only the Spine bitch wouldn’t have to wait; she’d made that woman a promise. And now, today, in the dark reaches of the temple, she meant to carry it out.

When she reached the Gatebridge, she paused. The mist was thinning. A pale sun shone through and endowed the great building with a golden halo. To reach the Sanctum she would have to go underneath. She hesitated, thumping her wings to keep her level, and looked down into the abyss. The rope scar around her neck constricted until she gasped.

What was she so afraid of?

Carnival couldn’t remember. Was it their god? She didn’t believe in gods. Gods were the inventions of men. Men fashioned gods to carry the burden of their own guilt. Men killed because they were afraid, and forgiveness made the killing easier. Without absolution, men suffered.

On every part of her body Carnival’s old scars flared anew. She knew all about suffering. Teeth clenched, she swallowed hard, and dove.

Spikes and ribs of dark metal crowded the base of the temple. Iron loops as large as city blocks held the foundation chains in a ring. There were countless apertures leading into the massive building, all linked by a great confusion of chain-bridges and cables. Spine normally used these to enter and exit the temple unseen. But now it was morning and there was no one to be seen. Dew coated the metal and fell away in rusty drips. Carnival flew on beneath, snarling as the rope scar around her neck started to burn like a garrotte.

A lantern hung from a wider aperture in the centre of the temple. When she reached it she forced herself to wait. She could hardly breathe, but she waited and listened and sniffed the air. For a while there was nothing but the sound of dripping and the smell of rust, and then she heard voices.

R
achel didn’t blame him. If it took her own presence here to get Carnival to come and listen to the fat man’s ridiculous plan, then fine. That was, after all, her job. But how could she get the message into Dill’s wooden skull? He had his stupid sword back now and stood there with his eyes glowing as green as spring, and he would not leave the Sanctum. He refused to leave her side.

His stubbornness was more than likely going to get him killed.

“I’m going to call Clay,” Fogwill warned, “and get him to drag you out by the scruff of the neck. How would that look, Dill? A temple archon ejected like a drunk from a penny tavern.”

Dill still did not reply.

Rachel felt movement in the air and looked at the aperture leading into the abyss. Nothing visible, but she kept her gaze there while she spoke to Dill. “Fogwill’s right. This thing is between her and me. You did the right thing. You don’t have to prove anything.”

Dill said nothing.

Fogwill was pacing before a thousand candles set deep in the iron-thicket walls; his footsteps echoed back from the vaulted ceiling. He approached the lectern, threw up his hands, and turned away. “You can’t be here, Dill. You’ll ruin everything. I’m going to tell you one last time:
leave
.”

Dill didn’t move.

Rachel was watching the aperture intently now. All of her nerves were on edge, every instinct screaming. She heard nothing, but she sensed
something
. Cold seeped into the Sanctum through that hole. A few of the candle-flames in the walls wavered. Her hand slipped to one of the bamboo tubes at her belt.